engine driver and four railwaymen on the coal train. The fire burned for two days, delaying any rescue effort and making the identification of most of the victims impossible. Strict censorship at the time under the regime of General Franco in the wake of the Spanish Civil War meant that the accident received little publicity at the time, and the official RENFE file on the accident was lost. Many people travelled without tickets so it was difficult to estimate the true number of passengers aboard, but survivors state that the train was packed, many travelling to the Christmas fair in Bembibre. It was only many years later that the scale of the accident was revealed; the actual death toll remains disputed. A recent and very detailed book on the disaster amounts the death toll to no more than 100 . Tunnel No. 20, the scene of the accident, was closed in 1985 due to geological problems. A film about the accident entitled Tunnel number 20 won a Goya Award in 2002 for best short documentary film. In 2019, the Spanish TV station RTVE produced a documentary called, "El tren de los desaparecidos" with witnesses and relatives of the tragic collision. Contradiction exists between The Guinness Book of Rail Facts and Feats, published in 1971 by John Marshall, as the third worst railway disaster with 500-800 killed in the double collision and fire inside tunnel. Studies indicate that documentation nor estimates are correct and historian, Vicente Fernandez, indicates 101 mortal victims and 116 wounded. Also, in the documentary, there is reference the train designated as RENFE 151-3101 located at the Catalonia Museum is actually the "Santa-Fe" Norte 5100 that was in the locomotive train wreck. Sources (in Spanish) El accidente de Torre del Bierzo ¿Qué pasó en el túnel número 20? Las victimas fueron 100 References Bibliography (In Spanish) Vicente Fernandez Vazquez: La verdad sobre el accidente ferroviario de Torre del Bierzo (1944), Ponferrada 2019, See also List of Spanish rail accidents List of train accidents by death toll Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne derailment, another very serious railway accident caused by inadequate brake power on a steep gradient. Train collisions in Spain Railway accidents in 1944 El Bierzo Transport in Castile and León 1944 in Spain Runaway train disasters Tunnel disasters January 1944 events History of the province of León